Murder and the Married Virgin ms-10

by Brett Halliday

  “Just this. Where were you last night and what did you do?”

  “From when on?”

  “Take it from dinner.”

  Shayne studied another spiral of smoke, then began an easy recital of picking Lana Moore up at the Laurel Club.

  “I walked into something, but I don’t know what,” he ended after several minutes. “I got socked and kicked around and I passed out without seeing the guy. I woke up half an hour ago in her apartment. Lana was passed out on the floor. I left her like that and went home.”

  Quinlan had watched him closely during the recital but he picked up the fountain pen again and twiddled it. Shayne could tell nothing of his thoughts when he said, “You’ll take an oath-swear that’s the truth?”

  “I’ll sign it when it’s typed.”

  “All the truth?” Quinlan asked warningly. “You’ve nothing to add to it.”

  Shayne’s fingertips ran around his injury. “Well-there was a little trouble at the club early in the evening. It ties in with a job I’m on and I’ll have to hold it out.”

  “The Lomax job?” Quinlan asked too casually.

  “That’s all for the record,” Shayne said, glancing at the man with the notebook. “Let’s just say one of my cases.”

  Quinlan dismissed the court reporter and leaned back.

  “Would you by any chance be referring to the little matter of getting thrown out of Dan Trueman’s office?”

  “I walked out.”

  “And threatened to come back while two of his boys hustled you away?”

  “Maybe I said something like that. I was sore.”

  Inspector Quinlan consulted a sheaf of data before him, then read from it: “‘Next time I come back there’ll be trouble.’ Did you tell Trueman that?”

  “I might have. I was sore.”

  “What about?”

  Shayne shook his red head stubbornly. “I’ll have to protect my client.”

  “Witnesses heard Trueman tell you to get out and quit beefing about your losses.”

  “Trueman was covering up. Hell, I’d just won over a grand with Laurel dice. I’ve got it in my pocket. If you know so damned much you ought to know that, too.”

  “I do. That’s what I couldn’t figure. I’ve been wondering why you went back and beat Dan Trueman to death.”

  “So that’s the lay. I beat him to death.”

  “You took the guns off the two bouncers when they threw you out. They were not armed when you came back later and you didn’t have much trouble. All I need is your motive, Shayne, and I think I’ve got that.”

  “You’re forgetting my alibi,” Shayne ground out his cigarette and lit another.

  Quinlan flipped a switch on his desk and picked up a telephone. Into the mouthpiece he gave Lana Moore’s address and said, “Bring her in. Don’t tell her anything, and look over her apartment carefully while you’re there.”

  Shayne took a deep drag on his cigarette, exhaled slowly and said, “You know I didn’t kill Trueman.”

  “I’ve practically got you sewed up on it.”

  “But you know I didn’t kill him,” Shayne said curtly.

  Inspector Quinlan considered for a moment, then said, “I’m going to be honest with you. It looks like the kind of job you might do, Shayne. This isn’t girl-murder like the Margo Macon case. Trueman was killed in a rough-and-tumble fight. He wasn’t a coward and he fought back. Maybe it wasn’t murder. Maybe you had a hell of a good reason for going back and tangling with him. If you give it to me straight, I’ll swing you all the breaks I can. If you can turn it into self-defense-” He shrugged and took a cigar from his breast pocket.

  “I didn’t go back. The girl will alibi me.”

  “I’ll still have to hold you,” Quinlan told him. “Look at it yourself, Shayne. You threatened him. You took his boys’ pistols-and they were legal, by the way. They had permits for those guns. Night watchmen. After pulling their teeth you waited until the joint was closed and went back. Why?”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Sure. Plenty. And you admitted it.”

  “Any witnesses to the killing? Anyone say I went back there later?”

  “You know damned well you took care of that. When you went in the side entrance and knocked both the boys out.”

  “I didn’t know there was a side entrance,” Shayne said patiently.

  Quinlan had his cigar lit. He sat back, shaking his iron-gray head and puffing meditatively.

  Shayne did a lot of fast thinking. He knew Quinlan to be honest and square, but he was a cop. He’d send his best friend to the chair if he believed justice would thus be done. Everything depended on Lana. If she hadn’t passed out too soon after he’d been slugged, her alibi would make it almost impossible to hold him. Quinlan might disbelieve her story; he might believe she was lying, but he couldn’t disregard it. He’d have to let him have time to crack Lana’s story concerning Katrin Moe and Lieutenant Drinkley. And in the meantime-

  Shayne drew in a deep breath. It sounded loud in the silence that had come between the two men. He had an idea that all he needed was a few hours now. Dan Trueman’s death threw a new angle on the case. He was wasting time…

  He was astounded at the length of time that had passed when a trim young detective came into the office and said, “We have Miss Lana Moore outside, sir.”

  Quinlan took the cigar from between his teeth and said, “Bring her in.”

  Shayne jerked himself to a straight position and his head throbbed with the sudden movement. He looked at Lana and was amazed at the transformation of a girl whom he had seen only a short time ago lying sprawled in a drunken stupor on her bedroom floor. Or-was she pretending to be in a stupor?

  His bushy red brows drew together as she came toward Quinlan’s desk with the young officer beside her. She wore a plain sports dress of tan and a green hat with a soft, wide brim that reflected green in her eyes and accentuated the pallor of her unrouged cheeks. A green sports coat was around her shoulders, the sleeves falling empty against her sides. She clutched a tan bag in both hands.

  She appeared entirely self-possessed, but Shayne watched her eyes. When she attempted to widen them in surprise they looked out of focus, and there was a slumbrous gaze in them, as though she had taken a strong sedative.

  She asked slowly and carefully, “What’s this-all about?”

  Quinlan arose and the young officer brought a chair to the desk and seated her with a gallant air.

  “Do you know Mr. Shayne?” Quinlan asked.

  “Oh-hello, Red. Sure I know him-” Her full lips curled in disdain. “What do you want to know?”

  “Just a minute,” the inspector said. He pressed a button and the court reporter dragged himself in again, sat down and took his pencil from his ear and poised it over his notebook.

  “Where,” Quinlan asked, “was Michael Shayne last night?”

  “What time last night?” Lana countered.

  “Between two and four this morning.”

  Lana Moore’s eyes widened again in badly focused surprise. She lifted her long lashes and lowered them demurely, “I don’t know what kind of a girl you think I am, Inspector,” she said in her deep, husky voice. “I had a date with him last night, sure. But it wasn’t that kind of a date. He went home before midnight.”

  Inspector Quinlan’s cold blue gaze had not left her face for an instant. He said, quietly, “Will you swear to that, Miss Moore?”

  “On a stack of Bibles,” she answered promptly.

  She didn’t look at Shayne.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Inspector Quinlan waved Shayne back into his chair as he started up with a muttered curse. To Lana, Quinlan said, “Tell me about last evening. All about it.”

  She pouted prettily.

  “All of it?”

  “Everything.” The inspector’s voice was grim and demanding. “This is a homicide investigation, Miss Moore.”

  She said, “Oh-you mean murder? Who-”


  “You’re not being questioned about the murder, Miss Moore. Tell me about you and Shayne last night.”

  She glanced at Shayne and the court reporter, then faced the inspector. “I haven’t anything to hide,” she said defiantly. “I was in a cocktail bar having a drink all by myself when he-Red here-came in and sat down by me and offered to buy me one. I didn’t see any harm in that, and then we had dinner together and he-” She hesitated, looking doubtfully at Quinlan and moistening her red lips with the tip of her tongue.

  “Don’t hold back anything,” he advised. “You won’t be giving out any information if you tell about the gambling.”

  Lana looked relieved. “He wanted to gamble, so I went back with him and watched while he played and won a lot of money. Then I wanted to go home so we got a taxi and-”

  “Wait a minute,” Quinlan interrupted. “Didn’t anything else happen at the Laurel Club?”

  She wrinkled her forehead and said dubiously, “Not that I know of. Nothing important anyway.”

  “Were you with him all the time?”

  “Every minute. That is”-she managed to look embarrassed-“except for a few minutes when he-well, he excused himself.”

  “To go to the men’s room?”

  “I guess so. He said for me to wait for him in the lounge. So I did, and when he came back we got a taxi-”

  “How long was he away from you?” Quinlan demanded.

  Lana considered this with a serious pucker between her eyes. “It might have been five or ten minutes. I’m not positive.”

  “Proceed. You got in a taxi and went home,” Quinlan prompted.

  “We went straight to my apartment-the Armentieres. He wanted to come up for a minute and I thought it would be all right because he had acted like a perfect gentleman up until then, so I told him he could come up for just one drink.” She paused and shrugged eloquently. “I should have known better, I guess. A man seems to think that because a girl lives alone and gets lonely and accepts a drink and dinner from a man that she’s inviting him to make a pass at her. He quit being a gentleman as soon as we were in the apartment. He was horrid-and I got rid of him as last as I could. That was a little before midnight, because I was in bed by twelve.” Her tawny eyes looked guilelessly at Quinlan.

  The inspector turned cold wary eyes on Shayne. “What does this do to your story?”

  “Knocks it all to hell,” Shayne said bitterly. “If you’re going to listen to a chippie-”

  “You-!” Lana started up with her eyes blazing at Shayne.

  Quinlan said, “Sit down.” It was a command.

  She sank back in her chair biting her underlip and murmuring something about being insulted.

  The inspector didn’t look at Lana. He was watching Shayne closely.

  “I can prove my story,” Shayne said. “Get the man in here who picked her up. Ask him what condition he found her in-what the apartment looks like this morning.”

  Quinlan picked up the telephone of an intercommunication service and said, “Send Handley in.” The trim young detective entered promptly and the inspector asked, “What condition was Miss Moore’s apartment in-and what condition was she in?”

  “What condition, sir?”

  “Did you have to wake her up? Was she dressed? How did she look?”

  “She opened the door promptly after I knocked,” Handley told him. “She was wearing one of those-thingamajigs…”

  “A hostess gown,” Lana interpolated sweetly.

  “That’s right,” Handley agreed. “Blue silk. She was drinking a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper in the living-room. She seemed quite astonished when I told her she’d have to come to headquarters, but she didn’t make any fuss about it.”

  “Women!” said Shayne bitterly. “I tell you she was lying flat on the floor with a blue nightgown on and passed out as cold as a turkey when I left that apartment not more than an hour ago.”

  Lana Moore drew in an audible and outraged breath and looked bewildered. “Of all the nerve! That’s the biggest lie I ever heard.”

  Handley set his jaw and his eyes were scornful; Quinlan shook his head sadly as though he regretted the necessity of embarrassing the girl.

  “What condition was the apartment in, Handley?”

  “I didn’t see anything out of the way, sir,” Handley answered. “I went in the kitchen while Miss Moore was dressing, and I managed a look in the bedroom after she came out of it. Everything looked all right.”

  Quinlan looked at Shayne again, and again moved his head from side to side.

  “I’m not nuts,” Shayne said with angry emphasis. “It’s a damned frame, and if you can’t see it you’re blind as hell.” He appealed to the inspector: “Get your chemist over there and I swear he’ll find evidence of blood on the rug where I was lying when I woke up this morning. She may have washed it off, but it’ll be in the nap.”

  Lana shuddered delicately and asked the inspector, “What’s he trying to prove? I don’t know what any of this is about, but he certainly sounds crazy to me.”

  “What about Lieutenant Drinkley and you?” Quinlan asked abruptly, and watched her closely.

  “Lieutenant-Drinkley?” She repeated it slowly and gave the impression of trying to recall the name. “I don’t recall ever having met him. I meet a lot of soldiers.”

  Shayne’s eyes glittered. He started to speak through hard set lips, but the inspector gestured for silence.

  “Shayne is trying to talk himself out of a murder rap,” Quinlan told Lana. “You can’t blame him for trying. You’ve been very helpful, Miss Moore. If you’ll wait in the outer office I’ll have your testimony transcribed and ask you to sign it.”

  “Make it under oath,” Shayne snapped angrily, “and you’ll have a goddamned perjury on your hands.” He hunched forward, staring at the tips of his shoes. His right thumb and forefinger pulled at the lobe of his left ear.

  When Handley took the girl out and closed the door, Quinlan said calmly, “Looks as though you haven’t got a leg to stand on.”

  Shayne nodded. “She did a good job. It takes a woman to think up a deal like that.” He spoke with grudging admiration.

  “What’s the angle, Shayne? You talked before about her luring you there to get you beaten up. Now you’re trying to make me believe she pulled this frame. There has to be a reason for a thing like that.”

  “There is. A good one.”

  “What?”

  Shayne shrugged. “Another damned case.” His tone was depressed. “I was beginning to crack down-that’s all.”

  “Anything to do with the Lomax emeralds?”

  “Sort of,” Shayne admitted cautiously. “They tie together, though I’m damned if I know how.”

  “Are you trying to make me believe that girl had something to do with Trueman’s death? That the whole thing was a gag to be sure you didn’t have any alibi for it?”

  Shayne straightened up and stopped tugging at his ear. “Damned if I know. It’s hard to believe the whole thing was prearranged. No one knew I was going to have an argument with Dan Trueman and lay myself open to a murder accusation. What kind of a story did the morning paper run?”

  “A full account of the whole thing. Your argument with Trueman was played up, and it was made clear that we were hunting you-for questioning at least.”

  Shayne glared at him angrily. “Now, by God, that’s sweet publicity. You had to run to the newspaper with it-try me there before I had a chance to tell my story.”

  Inspector Quinlan compressed his lips. “I don’t hand out that sort of stuff. A reporter happened to be in the barroom last night and saw the whole thing. He recognized you and brought the story to me as soon as the murder broke. Hell, I couldn’t tell him not to print it.”

  “Could be it wasn’t a cold frame,” Shayne muttered. “If Lana woke up right after I left and read the paper-she’s smart enough to have seen I was going to need her to alibi me. So she fixed things to make a liar out of me as soon as
the checkup came.”

  “Could be.” Quinlan was noncommittal. “But you still lack any proof, and you haven’t given me any reason to think she’s lying instead of you. Can you prove her connection with Drinkley?”

  “I doubt it. She’s probably disposed of his photograph, and the clerk at the Dragoon would probably deny that she went to Drinkley’s room if she asked for him at the desk. Which she probably didn’t.”

  “Dragoon Hotel?” Quinlan asked.

  “I told you I was on a case,” Shayne said. He got up, wincing slightly, flexed his body and thrust his hands deep in his pockets. “So?”

  “Unless you want to give out more than you have-I’m holding you on suspicion of murder.”

  Shayne nodded. He hunched his head forward and prowled the length of the office and back, stopped beside the inspector’s desk and asked hoarsely, “Have you got a drink?”

  The inspector went to a filing cabinet and from one of the drawers took a pint bottle with only a couple of drinks gone from it. Shayne pulled the cork with his teeth, tilted it and gurgled. It was half empty when he handed it back to Quinlan and said, “Thanks.”

  His eyes were brighter. He started his restless prowling again while Quinlan sat down and waited in silence.

  After a time Shayne muttered, “You’re putting the pressure on, aren’t you?”

  Quinlan didn’t reply. He appeared to be preoccupied with the ease with which he ran a fountain pen through his folded hand.

  “You’ve got me over a barrel,” Shayne stated with anger and disgust. “You and Lana Moore. You know me too well to believe I’d be crazy enough to hand you an alibi I knew couldn’t stick.”

  “It is out of character,” he admitted. “But there it is.”

  “Yeh. There it is. It’s fallen in your lap and who are you to question a gift from the gods? That the way you feel about it?”

  “You’re my only suspect thus far.”

  “You’re after something,” Shayne reasoned bitterly. “You’re using this thing as a lever to pry it out of me.”

  “I’m still waiting to hear the truth about your argument with Dan Trueman.”

  Shayne sat down and said, “Look, I’m trying to make a living. Recovery of the Lomax necklace means over twelve grand in my pocket-if I do the recovering. Where’d I be in my business if I came to you cops with all my dope?”